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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Walgreens Likes Couponers? Are You Sure?

Recently, I had an unpleasant run-in with Walgreens - after which I wrote to their corporate office. I was contacted by the store manager by email apologizing for my experience, he said, "We very much want our coupon shoppers to shop here, I just got done talking about this at the last employee meeting we had."

The manager was very nice and this is in no way against him. He did everything in his power to make things right, and I really appreciate it.

That being said, today I was in a different Walgreens to take advantage of their advertised deals and was met with this:

These were both items that, when you combine the sale with the available manufacturer coupons, were completely free. Now, I understand imposing a limit and all but it should be reasonable. Limit 1? Seriously? This isn't Black Friday, this is just a normal sale.

Wouldn't you think that when they know it's going to be a hot item that they would just distribute more than one box at a time to their stores? Oh no, let's just dupe people into coming in so they can be mad they only get one. I know that with the rise in "extreme couponing" due to that unrealistic show on TLC that stores are starting to realize why their sale items disappear from the shelves so quickly when just one customer has enough coupons to take out an entire palate of a product. This is not only excessive, but extremely inconsiderate. I have only once cleared a shelf of an item, but it was only a shelf. I knew for a fact that the store had more in the back, so I didn't need to feel bad about it. This is not the case with a store like Walgreens. They seem too afraid of having one too many items at the end of the week than making a legitimate sale.

Anyway, I'm rambling, sorry. This just really burns my biscuit. Walgreens is now attempting to correct one extreme with another, which is never the right way to go about it. Why not, instead of treating us like 5 year olds, give us a realistic limit. It is entirely possible that I could have had no coupons for these items and just wanted to take advantage of a store sale, like most average consumers. Even before my couponing days, I would always buy a few of an item when it was on sale at a good price and I think that's true for most people. I admit, it is frustrating to go to a store only to find out that they are all out of a product, but I stand by the fact that it is worse to be frustrated at the store because they literally won't sell you products that they physically have than to be frustrated with other couponers who got their first. That's the luck of the draw, the store limit is not.
So Walgreens, if in fact "We very much want our coupon shoppers to shop here,"maybe you should make it a bit more conducive to shop in your store without these types of frustrations.